Lessons Learned from Loneliness
by CrlkSeasons
Summary: This story deals with some of the aftermath from the episode, Equinox, and also crew reactions to the presence of the ex-Borg, Marika Wilkarah, who came to live and die on Voyager.
1. Chapter 1

Lessons Learned from Loneliness

Chapter 1

The punch landed without even announcing it was on its way. It knocked Tom Paris clear off his feet and back into a row of barstools.

As Tom's feet skidded out from under him, his first thought was, "What the hell?" His second was, "What do I have to do to get a break around here?"

* * *

The last few weeks on Voyager had been a strain on everyone. Not even Neelix's party had been successful in lifting the crew's spirits. Actually, it was one of the least successful parties in the ship's history. People stood around, trying not to be too obvious about staring at the senior staff, trying to think of something, or someone else to talk about.

No one felt up to discussing the Equinox or its very un-Starfleet treatment of the Delta quadrant aliens, not to mention the Equinox crew's betrayal of the Voyager crew and their mistreatment of the two crewmembers who had been stranded on the Equinox when it fled. People weren't ready for social chitchat about what had gone on during Voyager's pursuit of the Equinox either. It was all still too fresh - the Captain's unwavering determination to track down the Equinox, the disagreement between the Captain and her First Officer over the treatment of the captured Equinox crewmember, the Equinox's eventual destruction with Captain Ransom still on board and his final bequest of the surviving Equinox crew to Voyager.

Those Equinox crewmembers were now an inescapable reminder of these unsettling events. By the end of the party the crew's mood was as soggy as the croutons that the Captain had brought to add to Chakotay's salad.

The atmosphere on Voyager's bridge had been particularly uncomfortable during the hunt for the rogue Starfleet vessel. It had been impossible for Tom Paris or for Harry Kim to escape the strain of watching Voyager's topmost senior staff at odds over the question of how to deal with the Equinox. Trapped by duty, at their stations, there had been no way for either of them to dodge the tension.

The Equinox was history now. They'd even held a ceremony to restore Voyager's dedication plaque that had fallen from its place on the bridge. But Tom still felt like he was walking on eggs every time he came on duty on the bridge. It was hard to tell which was worse - the occasional lapses into awkwardness, or the Captain's determination to carry on in front of her crew as if all the pieces on the ship were back in in their regular places again.

So Tom Paris wasn't surprised when the demand for holodeck time spiked to a new level of high. He could sympathize when crewmembers became irritable if they had to wait outside the holodecks for their turn.

Tom had a private reason to wish for the encounter with the Equinox to retreat as quickly as possible into the past. He was seriously unhappy about the way good old Max, the Equinox's First Officer and B'Elanna's old boyfriend from her days at the academy, had treated B'Elanna when he came on Voyager. Max had used her, and his former relationship with her, as little more than a useful convenience to cover up his infiltration of Voyager's security systems. Tom couldn't help but be concerned about the way B'Elanna's ex-beau's subsequent fate might have affected her. But B'Elanna only said that she should have known better, that Max always had been a petaQ. She said that she'd save her regrets for the crewmembers on the Equinox who had trusted Max and had followed him to their deaths. That was the story that she was sticking with anyway.

When Voyager first approached the Markonian outpost where they were currently docked, the bright station lights with their festive colors made such a cheerful sight that Tom wasn't that surprised to see the crew's spirits finally begin to rebound, at least a little. The Captain took full advantage of the opportunity presented by the station to provide a change of pace for her crew. She negotiated visitation rights for the ship with the station and a large number of locals from the outpost took advantage of Captain Janeway's reciprocal invitation to come aboard to tour Voyager. The ship's corridors quickly filled with boisterous, inquisitive aliens of all shapes, sizes and colors. Many of the visitors brought gifts for the Captain and her crew. More than a few of them selected small 'gifts' to take back from the ship in exchange. It definitely made a break from the routine for Voyager's crew to host these lively guests.

Tom had a lot of experience putting pieces back together, and he could tell that the visitors were certainly providing the crew with a nice change of pace. But what he figured would do _his_ spirits even more good was a visit of his own to the outpost for some old-fashioned R and R. He tried to talk B'Elanna into joining him - with no success. She insisted on staying put on Voyager. Even with vital systems off limits to visitors and Tuvok's security teams on duty, she was adamant about personally maintaining vigilance over her precious engines, without, as she so plainly put it, Tom hovering around, getting in her way. So, Tom was now on his way to find Harry to convince him to head over to the station with him.

In the corridor ahead of Tom, Ken Dalby was standing in the middle of the passageway, blocking Tom's way and glaring at a closed door. The door marked the quarters where he had dropped off the Equinox crewman who was assigned to work with him this week. Dalby was getting more and more annoyed with his babysitting charge. The guy had tried all week to work an angle with the Maquis on Voyager, all along the lines of "You're an outsider. I'm an outsider too. Let's be pals."

Dalby had no patience with that kind of shit. He didn't see any of _them_ volunteering to help when his home was overrun and his wife killed by the Cardassians. And the Equinox crew didn't seem so anxious to hang out and make nice with the Voyager Maquis when they abandoned them along with all the rest of the Voyager crew to turn tail and make their own run for home. The only one he had any patience with now was Marla Gilmore. She had at least tried to make things right. So Dalby was clear on how he felt about being pals with the Equinox crew.

What he wasn't so clear on, was how he felt about what Janeway had done, pushing to the extreme to track down the Equinox. That part left him with a sour taste in his mouth.

Ken Dalby had loved his wife. He had never loved anyone so much in his life. Miracle of miracles, she had loved him back. But sometimes they argued. He couldn't help it. It was his nature to be pig-headed. His wife could hold her own with him. Still, she'd once told him that although she would never leave him, no matter what, there were times when she just needed to go for a long walk.

Dalby was a part of Voyager now. He had no intention of leaving the ship. But man, right now he wished he could go for a long walk.

"Problem?" Tom asked when it became clear that Dalby wasn't planning to move any time soon.

Dalby tore his eyes away from the door. "Nah, just getting fed up with babysitting."

Tom thought quickly. It looked like there were more than a few people on Voyager who could use the kind of break that he had in mind. "I'm going over to the station with Ensign Kim to find a bar to get some beer," he said. "Why don't you come along? We can make it a party."

Ken considered the proposal. Long walk? Beer? In the mood he was in, that was not a bad trade off - good for dealing with the taste in his mouth too. He nodded. "I just might do that."

"Great! See you in, say, half an hour?" Tom thought that should be plenty of time for him to pick up Harry and corral a few others too.

Dalby nodded again and headed back to his station to sign off from duty, grumbling to himself just to keep in practice.

Tom continued on his way, keeping an eye out for more willing bodies to make it a real party. This might work out even better than he'd first thought.

Even though Voyager was physically docked at the station, Tuvok insisted that all visitors arriving and leaving the ship do so via the transporters. It was another one of those 'better safe than sorry' things. By the time Tom got Harry to the transporter room, he had a respectable number of crewmembers in tow. It was a diverse group, lively enough to engage in friendly banter that augured well for the outing.

The junket to find a bar started off well enough. They located an establishment that was well stocked with beer and served honest portions. Their mixed group included Jenny Delaney on a rare outing without her twin sister, Megan. She persuaded the barkeeper to let them take over a couple of prime tables, right beside a court set up in the middle of the bar. They settled in and got down to the serious work of sampling the local beer. The beer was tasty, the natives were friendly, and for a while all went well. Tom leaned back in his chair and smiled. This was much better. Quite a few spirits seemed to be in good shape now.

Then events took an unexpected turn. Two large Kinbori from the crowd seated on the other side of the court came over and invited Harry and Tom to play some kind of tennis game with big, clunky racquets. The skunk-like odor emanating from the Kinbori was enough to discourage competitive sportsmanship. But one of their own, a normally quiet crewman, piped up. "Great idea!"

The beer had apparently revved up everyone else's thirst for competition too - as long as it was Tom and Harry doing the competing.

"Harry, you have to take the challenge," Jenny encouraged Harry.

"Yeah, Paris," Ken Dalby called out. "Show them what you can do."

Buoyed by further shouts of encouragement from their not too discerning tablemates, Tom and Harry decided to give it a try.

At the beginning of the game, one of the Kinbori hit a ball over the net and Harry managed to make contact with his unwieldy racquet to return the volley.

That's when all hell broke loose.

The other team's cheering section broke into raucous hooting that sounded like boos. The Kinbori directly across from Tom screamed, threw his racquet to the floor, jumped up and down, leaped across the net, and punched Tom in the eye with enough force to knock him off his feet.

Harry was stunned. He rushed over to assist Tom before the Kinbori could get in another punch. At the tables on their side of the court the Voyager contingent got to their feet, ready to assist.

Tom crashed into the stools set up along the far side of the court. That hurt. But it broke his fall. He regained his balance and waved Harry off. He also rejected the implied help from the rest of his crewmates. His Starfleet training kicked in and he tried to defuse the situation. After all, he was a senior officer and was supposed to set an example. He opened his hands in what was generally accepted as a placating gesture. "Look friend," he said to his attacker. "There must be some misunderstanding. Maybe…"

That's when the other Kinbori hauled off and punched Harry in the mouth. The Kinbori team's cheering section took advantage of this move to vacate their benches and jump in.

Oh well, so much for diplomacy, Tom shrugged his apology to his shipmates. "It looks like they want to play a different kind of game," he commented wryly.

The rest of the Voyagers piled onto the court, some climbing over tables to get there. Ken Dalby drained the last of his beer before placing the empty glass on a table. No point in wasting a decent brew. Then he reached out to grab an alien who looked to be almost twice his size and punched him in the stomach.

It was clear that the bar was prepared for the occasional fight. The beer glasses they provided were the unbreakable kind, too light to cause major damage if used as missiles. Except for a few stools, most of the furniture was heavy duty and firmly bolted to the floor. Tom spared a moment to size up the opposition. Jenny had partnered up with Ken Dalby. They promised to make a formidable team. Harry looked ready to hold his own. Their other crewmates were scattered among the Kinbori. Everyone looked to be in good shape. Tom picked out a target for himself and dove in.

The barkeeper ducked around the combatants to get to the doors. He opened them wide and waved the brawlers outside to take advantage of the clear space in the 'street' in front of the bar. In no time at all the corridor was filled with a noisy tangle of Kinbori and Voyagers surrounded by various onlookers who appeared in the doorways of neighboring establishments to shout encouragement and advice from a safe distance.

The other businesses on the 'street' benefited from the flow of customers in and out of the bar. Many of the bar's customers stopped to shop in nearby stores, especially after alcohol got them into an expansive and generous mood. So the other business owners usually cast a tolerant eye on these occasional disruptions. The recreational store across the corridor had even lent the bar a set of Kinbori racquets and a net when they heard that several Kinbori ships would be docked at the station for a few cycles. Their sales of racquets had been brisk.

But farther up the corridor, the proprietor of a clothing shop swore in irritation as his customers exited his store to go and watch the fight. This had already happened twice in the last nine work cycles. He was losing patience with these interruptions to his business. He reached under his counter to press an alarm that would summon station security. They could be here in a matter of minutes. Once they hauled these pesky brawlers to jail, he could return to the profitable business of making sales to his customers.

What happened to the brawlers would be on their heads. It would serve them right if station authorities locked them up for a prolonged stay.


	2. Chapter 2

Lessons Learned from Loneliness

Chapter 2

Partway through his shift, Mike Ayala decided that he had no affinity for diplomacy whatsoever. He had spent hours patrolling Voyager's lower decks, trying to be diplomatic with their visitors, most of whom were being little more than a pain in the ass. Every time he finished dealing with one 'misunderstanding' a new call came through from Tuvok, sending him to diffuse another situation where, of course, everyone was innocent of any kind of wrong doing. It was worse than being caught in the path of a pod of speed-diving bats on Dorvan. You escaped from one bat only to run smack into five more. But at least you didn't have to be polite to the bats.

For the last hour Mike had consoled himself with the thought of the cool draft that Tom Paris had promised to find when he and the others left for the station. Now that Mike finally reached the end of his shift, he was on his way to the transporter room on a mission to track down that beer. He didn't bother to stop to change out of uniform. He wasn't planning on staying long and there was no rule about what to wear over on the station, as long as you didn't do anything stupid. Mike wasn't planning on doing anything stupid.

He should have no problem locating the bar. Paris had sent clear directions back to the ship so that any latecomers who wanted to join them would know where to find them. Maybe it was Kim who sent the information. It was just that when the two of them got together you tended to think of Paris first, and blamed him too if things went wrong.

Paris had always reminded Mike of his cousin, Tony. Tony had the same in-your-face stubbornness that Mike recognized in Paris back his days with the Maquis. Tony had that same unwillingness to give in, that same refusal to give up that Paris had. Maybe that was why the Cardies had gutted Tony and left him to rot in a tree. Maybe that was why Mike had cut Paris more slack than most of the others did back in the early days when Paris joined the Maquis. Not that it was all that big a deal. He just held his temper and his tongue a bit longer when Paris mouthed off. Mike wouldn't want anyone to think he was sentimental or anything. In fact when B'Elanna started going around with Paris he'd confided to her what he'd done. She'd said that she hadn't noticed the difference. So that was okay then.

When Mike arrived at the designated transfer point inside the station, he still had a fair hike ahead of him to reach the section where Paris and Kim's bar was located. It was a tribute to the favorable impression that Captain Janeway made on the local authorities that Voyager had been given a transfer bay adjacent to one of the classier sections of the station, far from the riffraff. Mike didn't mind the walk. The sights were entertaining and he didn't have any trouble negotiating his way through the flowing crowds of locals and visitors in the corridors. Even in the busier corridors, people tended to step out of his way when they saw him coming.

But as Mike approached the last cross-corridor that led to the bar, his internal warning signals started acting up. He could tell, even from a distance, that something was up. First of all, the traffic patterns of the crowd changed abruptly. Most took a glance down the corridor and then hurried off in another direction. The very few who continued around the corner slowed down considerably. The sounds that Mike could hear coming around the corner created a different tone from the regular shouts of people ordering drinks and falling into furniture when they'd had too many. This was a fight. It sounded like a big one.

Mike wasn't about to turn and head back to Voyager. Uniform or not, he had shipmates in that bar. Still, he prepared a cautious approach. He wanted a chance to get the lay of the land. You didn't last long in the Maquis without figuring out that the best way to help your friends was to stay alive long enough to be of use to them.

Once Mike rounded the corner, he could see the way ahead blocked by a bottleneck of people. He walked up, shouldered his way past most of them, then halted and held his position. An unusual odor wafted down the corridor from the fight. Most of the crowd didn't seem to notice it. That wasn't unusual with mixed species. It was clear to Mike that the brawl in front of him had spilled out from the bar that was his original destination. He could see several Voyager crew in the middle of the fight and identified a few familiar voices in the jangle of noises as well.

"Look out! Behind you!" That was Kim.

"Thanks!" Jenny, or maybe Megan, Delaney. What was she doing in there?

"Martsak tak na!" No idea on that one.

"Same to you, buddy!" Dalby - for sure.

Mike sized up his cremates' progress against the bunch they were facing. From his perspective, aside from the fact that the fight smelled bad, the good guys were doing a decent job so far. The opposition had numbers and size rather than much in the way of fighting skills.

Over on the other side of the corridor, Tom Paris ducked a glass thrown through an open door and took his own inventory of the fight. Despite being out numbered, his team looked like they were more than holding their own. In fact, they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. Tom could appreciate the sentiment. After the first punch that had caught him unawares, he hadn't taken any more serious damage. He'd gotten used to the smell, so he was actually feeling pretty good right now.

Still, he figured that his crewmates should wrap things up pretty soon. He knew from experience that station security would be arriving at any minute. He also knew that, once they addressed their mandate of protecting local merchants, security personnel tended to give most respect to the winning side, especially if it still had some fight left in it. They didn't waste much time worrying about such niceties as innocent victims or who started the fight.

Through a gap in the action Tom spied Mike Ayala in uniform scanning the scene. It would be a big plus for their side if Mike could join them, that is, if he wasn't here in his official capacity as a part of Voyager's security team. Tom wouldn't want to get Mike into any serious trouble by asking him to join a street fight while on duty.

Tom worked his way over to check. "Mike! You here on duty?"

"Nope."

It was a good thing that Mike didn't waste time mincing words. A second later Tom was dragged away by a seriously grumpy local from a neighboring cafe. He freed himself from this temporary distraction with a move that was part Starfleet training, part Maquis experience. He edged his way back to Mike to ask, "Can you lend a hand?"

"Yup." Mike waded into the heart of the fray. He took out two of the opposition by simply reaching over and knocking their heads together. It was such an efficient strategy in these close quarters that he used it again on an opponent who happened to have two heads housed on a single body. It worked even better that time.

By the time the authorities arrived, the crewmates from Voyager were clearly the winners. Station security separated the remaining combatants and took down names and ship affiliations.

Security took one look at Mike and decided to give him a pass. With him in a formal officer's uniform, barely mussed, they figured that he was someone in authority and that it would be far less trouble for them to concentrate on the rest of the combatants.

Mike didn't feel any need to contradict this point of view. He could use it to his shipmates' advantage. So he stepped on Paris' foot to shut him up before _he_ could come forward. Mike had used similar tactics once in a bar many years ago. Back then, though, he had punched him in the jaw. Mike figured he should be a bit more discreet now, being officers and everything.

Tom grimaced. Normally he would have assumed responsibility and taken charge of the situation. But he remembered that long ago bar too. He trusted Mike's instincts in situations like these. He knew that it might be a good idea to play along for now. If Mike's plan didn't work, he could still take over. He tugged on Harry's sleeve to hold him back as Mike stepped forward.

Mike pushed himself between his crewmates and the station security team and put his stoniest glower in place. It was the one that said, "You're security. That's fine. But, I just got into the mood for a fight. So don't get heavy handed and piss me off."

It was a form of shorthand communication that station security apparently understood well. "Right. Get your crew back to your ship. We'll be filing a report on their charges with your Captain."

So without any of the diplomatic crap that Paris and Kim would have felt was necessary, Ayala herded his group off the station and back to Voyager.

The mood was light when the first of the group materialized back in Voyager's transporter room. Aside from their rumpled appearances, they might have been any group returning from a social outing. They hung around companionably to wait for the rest of the group.

"Did you see the punch that I landed on the guy who was swinging the racquet?"

"Jenny! Where did you learn that great trick with your knee?"

"From fending off a gorilla on Deep Space Nine who didn't understand that 'no' meant 'no'. What did you think, that I was some helpless flower who couldn't take care of herself?"

Finally Tom Paris, Harry Kim and Mike Ayala materialized on the transporter pad to be warmly welcomed by the group.

"Way to throw a party, Paris. Haven't had such a good time in ages!" Ken Dalby commended Tom.

Commander Chakotay came through the door just in time to hear that last line. He had suspected that the group returning from the street brawl would be feeling no pain. He'd waylaid Tuvok to convince him that it would be better if Chakotay met the team, even though there _was_ a security issue involved.

"Mr. Paris, Mr. Kim, change into uniform. The Captain wants to see you in her ready room almost immediately. The rest of you, report to Sickbay so the Doctor can fix any bumps and bruises. After that, stay in your quarters until you hear something different."

Paris and Kim suddenly sobered up considerably. They quickly left the transporter room to clean up before meeting the Captain. This was the part where being bridge crew meant that the Captain held you responsible for what happened on the station. Mike stood back and watched. On the ship he was quite happy to defer to the intricacies of Starfleet protocol.

The rest of the away team started to make their way out of the transporter room. They hadn't sobered at all. Several arms were draped across friendly shoulders. A couple of voices that should never try to sing started to share a victory song. The Doctor would be really happy to hear _that_ arriving in his Sickbay.

Chakotay motioned for Ayala to hold back a moment and then fell into step beside him as they too made their way through Voyager's corridors toward Sickbay. "It sounds like it was a hell of a fight," Chakotay commented, as they walked together.

Mike nodded in agreement.

"I wish I could have joined you. Did you have a good time?"

Mike nodded again, then frowned. "I didn't get any beer." This public display of loquaciousness reflected the depth of his disappointment over this fact.

"I tell you what," Chakotay offered. "I have a stash hidden. It's not beer. But it's the real thing. Why don't I drop by later when I've finished my shift?"

A slow smile spread across Ayala's face and they continued on their way to Sickbay.

Author's notes:

1) Mike's cousin, Tony, and Mike's past history with Tom Paris are entirely my own invention.


	3. Chapter 3

Lessons Learned from Loneliness

Chapter 3

During his tenure as Voyager's Tactical Officer and its Chief of Security, Lt. Commander Tuvok had faced hostile empires powerful enough to decimate the population of entire sectors of space. He had countered attacks launched by aliens too far removed from humanoid to be recognized as sentient. In every instance he had met each formidable challenge with unshakable Vulcan stoicism. However, standing in the middle of his austere office, he now eyed the security report in his hand as if had morphed into some highly distasteful, pernicious rodent.

Kathryn Janeway did her best to hide her amusement. She had taken refuge in Tuvok's office to escape from the heaped mound of gifts that took up most of the useable space in her ready room. Tuvok was making use of this unexpected visit to go over his security report with her. He was itemizing a complete list of the damages inflicted on the ship by the sometimes overly enthusiastic visitors from the Markonian outpost. It seemed to Tuvok that it all added up to an unnecessarily high price for the ship to pay for 'company'.

Kathryn didn't share Tuvok's opinion, or his distaste for the multiple, but all relatively minor, problems caused by their visitors. In the Delta quadrant opportunities to relax were rare. More often than not, the crew endured months of duty without finding anywhere that afforded them an opportunity for shore leave, and Voyager's crew badly needed to let their hair down and let off steam.

Kathryn sat to one side of Tuvok's office in a comfortable, but regulation, chair. She watched him as he worked his way through the report in his familiar, comforting pace. She took a sip from the mug of coffee that she had rescued from her ready room, content to be here, spending time with her friend.

There had been many other times over the years when Kathryn had sought out Tuvok's company, especially in the early days before she developed a close working relationship with her First officer. There had been many comfortable moments with both of them. But there had also been rocky moments - with both of them.

Kathryn felt the burden of being in command of a ship that was stranded so far from the Alpha quadrant more often than she cared to admit, even to these most senior of her officers. She had come to wish for the presence of another Starfleet ship out here in the Delta quadrant, so that she could have the companionship of another Starfleet Captain. She thought that it would be so much easier if she had someone to whom she could fully confide about the onerous weight of this unprecedented responsibility.

What was it that B'Elanna told Tom, "Be careful what you wish for"? Voyager's encounter with the starship, Equinox, had turned her wish into a nightmare. Instead of a friend, Voyager had found another enemy. The Equinox's crew had crossed a line that no Starfleet crew should ever cross. They had used sentient life forms as no more than tools to serve their own needs. Then they had left Voyager behind to deal with the fall out from these actions. It hadn't been easy for Voyager to escape from the furious aliens who were seeking vengeance on Voyager for the Equinox's acts of kidnapping and murder. It wasn't easy to deal with that kind of betrayal by a supposedly fellow Starfleet crew.

This rest stop at the Markonian station meant more to her than she could convey to Tuvok in words.

Tuvok continued with his report. "All of the crew have now reported back from shore leave. The last of our visitors are in the process of leaving Voyager to return to the station." He chose his next words with dry, deliberate care. "Security teams are on duty to ensure that our guests do not take any more souvenirs with them when they leave."

"I hope they aren't being be rude, Tuvok," the Captain teased with a straight face.

Tuvok looked up from his PADD. "Certainly not," he assured her, managing to sound affronted without the slightest change in tone. "They are, however, being thorough."

"Of course," Kathryn agreed solemnly. "What was the final decision by the station authorities on the brawl involving our crew?" she asked, tying up one of their remaining loose ends.

"As you surmised, Captain, the magistrate concluded that the fight was the result of a genuine misunderstanding. Since the Kinbori traders who initiated the incident have made full restitution for any damages, the Markonian authorities consider the matter closed."

"I'm glad to hear that. After such a relaxing rest stop, I'd hate to leave any bad feelings behind."

"Relaxing? I would hardly characterize our visit in quite those terms. Need I remind you that in addition to the incident on the station, there is this lengthy list of infractions committed by visitors while on Voyager?"

"Yes, I know that. But, no threats of hostile takeovers, no challenging moral dilemmas, no life or death battles to fight. You can't say that this wasn't a refreshing change.

Tuvok regarded her with a penetrating stare, but didn't comment.

Kathryn knew that he was leaving her an opening to speak, if she wanted to take it. There was much that she could say, but it was difficult. There were times when all she wanted to do was to find a nice, quiet space where she could curl up and sleep without dreaming. But she forced herself not to retreat into her quarters the way she had done when they'd crossed the void. She wouldn't do that to her crew again.

She worked hard at making herself visible. She received visitors and accepted their gifts on behalf of the ship. She visited the ship's departments. She walked the corridors and drank coffee in the mess hall, anything she could do to show her crew that their Captain was on the job, the same as usual, anything she could do so they could believe that everything on the bridge was normal again.

This rest stop had helped the crew. But it would take time to fully heal the damage caused by the fractures that had surfaced between the ship's two most senior officers over the issue of the Equinox. Kathryn shook her head at the size of the task as well as the length of the journey ahead of them. "We have such a long way to go, Tuvok. There has to be more to this journey than a never ending struggle to survive. It is important to stop from time to time to remember that."

"I would think that the holodecks provide sufficient opportunity for relaxation without nearly as much collateral damage from friendly aliens. Nevertheless, this shore leave may help to improve the crew's efficiency and maximize their performance." Tuvok deliberately chose words that he had once used when the Maquis and Starfleet crew were still in the early stages of integrating into a single crew.

Kathryn recognized the words, and smiled. Then she nodded to him to continue his report.

Tuvok moved on to the final issue left from their station visit. "Captain, do you have any further instructions concerning the newest addition to Voyager?"

Kathryn considered the ex-Borg who was their latest Delta quadrant acquisition, and their latest challenge. Marika Wilkarah had been assimilated by the Borg during the battle at Wolf 359. After many years in the collective, she had escaped from the Borg along with two companions who were trapped with her in a neural link. Their separation from the link had caused so much residual damage that the three of them now had only weeks left to live. Ms. Wilkarah had asked to live out those weeks on Voyager.

Kathryn shook her head. "She no longer has any kind of connection to the Borg. She doesn't pose a security risk. Our primary concern has to be what we can do to help to make her comfortable while she is on the ship. Commander Chakotay has assigned her some quarters. I've taken her on a tour of Voyager and offered her some duties, if she's interested. She has a lot to deal with. She needs some time to adjust."

"May I point out that time is a commodity that Ms. Wilkarah does not have in abundance. She may require further assistance in the more immediate future."

"You're probably right," the Captain agreed. "I'll see what else I can learn from Seven that might help." She sat for a while longer, to finish her coffee and to enjoy her stay with Tuvok. Then it was time to head down to Astrometrics.

As Kathryn made her way through Voyager's corridors, it seemed to her that the ship felt emptier somehow, now that their enthusiastic visitors were gone. The ship's atmospheric systems had wound back down to normal after days of operating at peak efficiency to rid Voyager of the alien odors that would otherwise have permeated the ship. Negotiating the olfactory signals given off by alien species was always a delicate matter. Voyager's systems kept everyone happy.

Kathryn noted that the surface of the floors and the bulkheads had already been restored to their usual pristine condition. In the earliest days of their journey, busy hands served to keep a lonely and grieving crew occupied. Back then there had been too much to think about and too little, outside of intermittent emergencies, to distract the crew from their thoughts.

The crew still kept the ship in as close to top condition as possible. Any signs of wear and tear, not just in operating systems, but on the ship's surfaces and furnishings as well, were monitored and serviced on a regular basis. Damages sustained in battle were repaired as soon as the emergency was over. Kathryn Janeway would polish the bulkheads herself, by hand if she had to, before she'd let her people serve on a ship that was anything less than first class.

In the Astrometrics lab Kathryn found Seven doing exactly what she had expected to find her doing. Seven was standing at a console, working hard to invent new projects that would keep her busy. There was little enough to do while Voyager was stationary in space, but Seven had buried herself in Astrometrics for several days now, with hardly any kind of break.

Seven looked up when the Captain entered. This was a concession on Seven's part. She ignored most people's presence when she was working.

"You've been on duty a long time, Seven," the Captain observed. "Why don't you take a break?"

"I prefer to occupy my time productively here in Astrometrics." Seven said. She directed determined fingers over the panel on her console.

Kathryn knew that there was more to this than Seven was admitting. "You can't avoid Marika Wilkarah forever," she advised her.

Seven paused in her work. Her posture didn't change and there was little inflection in her voice when she replied. "I am not avoiding Marika Wilkarah. We spoke. She said that she cannot forgive me for initiating the neural link that damaged her." Seven gave the Captain a pointed look. Then she resumed her seemingly endless calculations.

Kathryn considered Seven's information. Then she asked, "What about you, Seven? Can you forgive yourself?"

"What purpose would that serve?" Seven demanded without really expecting the Captain to have an answer. "It wouldn't change what I did." Seven didn't bother to look up or stop working this time.

The Captain leaned against a neighboring console to watch Seven. "No, it wouldn't." she agreed. "It wouldn't absolve you of responsibility either. But it would help you to move beyond this point, being mired in guilt. You have to do that before you can learn from your mistakes and make wiser decisions in the future."

"Perhaps." Seven answered. The Borg had never found a useful role for guilt in their search for perfection. Therefore, guilt was never allowed to take root in the collective mind. Facing guilt was a part of humanity that was still very new to Seven. She had experienced the emotion. She struggled with the concept. "I will consider it," she told the Captain. Then she dismissed the issue from her immediate thoughts in order to concentrate on the task in front of her.

Kathryn sighed. She often had to be satisfied with these small steps when dealing with Seven. And Seven was only _one_ of the many challenging personalities that Kathryn had to deal with on the ship.

Her crew was an unusually diverse group. They had been brought to the other side of the galaxy against their will. Then they had found out that they would have to live and work together under these unique circumstances for years, possibly for the rest of their lives. They couldn't be expected to be exactly the same as other Starfleet crews back in the Alpha quadrant.

Kathryn Janeway's orders were probably questioned more often than those of any other Captain in Starfleet history. It was something that she had almost come to expect. She tried to learn to make allowances for differences of opinion. She just made it very clear where the line was between questioning orders and disobeying them.

Kathryn waited for Seven to speak again. But Seven gave no indication that she was interested in further conversation. Kathryn straightened and moved to stand in front of her.

"There is something that only you can tell me about Ms. Wilkarah," Kathryn told Seven. "You're the one person on this ship who really understands what she's going through. You're the one person who might be able to tell us what we can do to help her get through it. Tell me what it's like for her to be separated from the others."

Seven considered her answer. Then she simply said, "It is quiet. It is peaceful. It is lonely."

Seven returned once more to her self-appointed task.

"I see," the Captain commented. And the only Starfleet Captain now left in the Delta quadrant did see. She turned and walked toward the exit. When the doors opened, she stopped. "Don't work too hard, Seven. Give yourself a break soon, will you? Everybody needs one, sometime."

Seven paused in her labor of denial - or of penance. "I will consider it," she promised.

The Captain left and both of them were alone once more.


	4. Chapter 4

Lessons Learned from Loneliness

Chapter 4

When the Captain left the Astrometrics lab, she allowed herself a few moments to drink in the smiles of passing crewmembers. Shore leave had lifted spirits and reinvigorated many. Even though Kathryn herself hadn't made it over to the station, most of the crew had been able to fit in at least one visit. She watched one particularly animated group disappear around a corner, trailing laughter behind them.

All of this was well enough, but people were beginning to give her puzzled looks, perhaps wondering why the Captain was still standing around outside Astrometrics. It was time for Kathryn to move on and to turn her attention to Ms. Wilkarah. "Computer, state location of Marika Wilkarah," she commanded in a no-nonsense tone.

"Marika Wilkarah is in the mess hall," the ship returned impassively.

With a destination now fixed, the Captain set off in her new direction.

Once inside the mess hall, the Captain found that Marika Wilkarah was indeed present in the room. But she was also, very clearly, no way a part of the crowd that was gathered there. Almost everywhere, the mess hall was packed with Voyager crew, eager to reclaim their space now that the tourists from the station were gone. Conversations flowed freely. There was so much to talk about.

One crewmember had lost three hairbrushes before she decided not to replicate any more until after the visitors left. Another crewmember had been given a beautiful shawl in shades of green and gold as a gift. Someone else shared stories that he had heard about a dangerous pirate race that roamed an area of space light years distant from where Voyager would venture.

Empty seats were scarce in the mess hall, yet Marika Wilkarah had a whole table to herself. She seemed to radiate a warding signal to repel anyone who might come near. Her personal shields were set so high that you could almost see her defenses shimmering around her.

Not everyone heeded her warning. Tal Celes, a timid young woman with an engaging smile, approached Marika. She stood hopefully at the perimeter of Marika's defenses. However, it was quickly apparent that this encounter with Marika's shields was going to be disastrous for the shy Tal. Whatever Marika said to her erased her smile and drove her reeling away in less than three minutes. Heads turned. Conversations halted in shocked disbelief. While Marika maintained a stony silence, Tal stumbled across the room, desperately searching for a place to hide.

Neelix, Voyage's Talaxian chef and self-appointed morale officer, started out from behind his counter to help. Others leapt up from their own tables and reached her first. With quiet words, Jenny and Megan Delaney coaxed Tal into joining them. Neelix nodded once and bustled back to his duties in the galley. He restocked the fruit trays on the counter, banging bowls the way he did when something was bothering him.

As the general hubbub gradually resumed, the Captain decided that she had better reconsider the tactics she should use with Ms. Wilkarah. After everything that her crew had gone through before this rest stop, they shouldn't have to spend the next few weeks dealing with this too. Kathryn spotted Commander Chakotay sitting at a nearby table with Mike Ayala and squeezed through to join them.

"I see that the siege hasn't been going particularly well," she said.

Mike Ayala stood to give the Captain his chair. He nodded to Chakotay and to the Captain. Then he left them together.

Chakotay understood what the Captain meant by her comment. He shifted his chair to give her more space before answering. "It doesn't compare in excitement with the melee on the station," he said. "But without lifting a hand, she's pushed away five people since I got here. That includes Neelix and me. You just witnessed rejection number five. She's been blunt right from the beginning. But she seems to be getting more and more vehement in her rejections."

"She fought you off too, did she?" Kathryn commented sympathetically.

"I can take a cold shoulder and a few cutting remarks. When someone comes right out and tells me to leave them alone, there's not much I can do without pulling rank or being rude myself. I thought it wasn't time yet for those measures."

"No," she agreed. "I don't think so either.

Neelix noticed that the Captain was still coffee-less. He filled a large mug from the thermos on the counter and made his way across the room. "Here you go, Captain!" His cheerfulness was forced. He took personal responsibility for the crew's spirits. "I shouldn't have suggested that Crewman Celes talk to Ms. Wilkarah," he confided to her. "It's just that they seem to have so much in common. Both of them are Bajoran. Both joined Starfleet."

Neelix looked over to where Tal Celes was sitting. Samantha Wildman and her young daughter, Naomi, had come over to help cheer her up. "I guess it wasn't such a good idea after all," he finished sadly. Everything from the multiple pleats on his garish shirt to the hair and whiskers on his face sagged perceptibly.

"You were trying to help, Neelix," the Captain consoled him. "If it had worked, it might have done both of them a lot of good." She understood Neelix's concern, though. From her own seat she could see the young crewmember doing her best to keep her distress under control. Only her determination not to cry in front of others, especially not Naomi, kept her hanging on, with very short fingernails.

Neelix nodded slowly. "Maybe," he agreed. "But now I have two people to cheer up." His thoughts turned to food, his own people's cultural pride. "Tal really liked the Dafa fruit that I got from the station merchants," he mused. "Maybe she'd enjoy a pie." He brightened a bit, then frowned. "I don't know what I can do for Ms. Wilkarah, though. She won't touch anything that I make for her. We have to do something, Captain."

"We will," she promised him.

Neelix's mood lifted again. He had confidence in the Captain's ability to get them through any situation. It was one of the corner stones of his life here on Voyager. "Excuse me, Captain, Commander," he said briskly. "I have a pie to make." Neelix made his way back to his galley. The whiskers on the side of his face lifted with renewed determination.

Chakotay didn't want to say anything to discourage Neelix, but he wasn't sure that they _could_ find an answer for Marika Wilkarah and her dampening effect on crew morale. "She keeps telling people to go away, Kathryn," he told her in a quieter voice. "What if she really does just want to be alone? Maybe we should respect her wishes. It might be the best thing we can do for her _and_ for the rest of the crew."

Kathryn considered this. But that instinct, that feeling in the pit of her stomach told her "no".

"I don't think so," she said. "Look at her. She has her shields up, but behind them is a woman who's in pain and, for the first time in years, truly alone. She may tell everyone to go away. But I think she needs people to fill the void left by those she lost."

"Do you think she'll let _you_ do that?"

"I'm not sure. I guess I could try. But I actually had someone else in mind for that job." She stopped to contemplate the coffee in her mug.

"Who?" Chakotay supplied. It seemed to be the question she was waiting for.

"Tom Paris." She announced.

"Tom?" If she had intended to surprise him, she had succeeded. He tried to figure out her reasoning. "Do you think he can use his charm to get through to her?"

"Why not?" she responded. "He's managed to charm a lot of people who once wouldn't give him the time of day."

"He doesn't easily take no for an answer," Chakotay admitted.

"Definitely persistent," she agreed. She smiled for a moment before she continued. "I had another reason for thinking of Tom, though."

"What's that?" he asked, staying in his role and helping her work through her ideas.

"Look at her carefully, Chakotay. Think about what I said about shields. Does she remind you of anyone?"

Recognition lit his eyes. "Tom," he said. "That's the way Tom used to look. Shields up. Hiding behind a mask of not needing anyone."

"Being an outsider and working hard to make everyone believe that's the way he wanted things," she finished.

"I'd almost forgotten what he was like back then," Chakotay mused. "Tom's so often at the center of life on Voyager now. Although being in the middle of a station brawl might have taken 'being at the center of things' a bit too far," he added with a smile.

"Harry did say that things got 'a little out of hand'," she explained with another smile of her own.

"Maybe next time I should join Tom on shore leave. I could land a few punches of my own," he said, apparently seriously.

She looked at him in surprise.

"At least some of the crew got to let off steam," he explained. "Not everyone can work things through with tea and conversation."

"I know," she said, in an even quieter voice.

They were working things out. But there were still rough edges left between them. After all their years of working together, the Equinox had brought some of the differences between them back to the foreground.

Kathryn had once assumed that she had worked out the right balance for integrating the two crews. She thought she knew when to accommodate differences and when to deflect them so that she wouldn't compromise Starfleet structure and principles. But maybe she hadn't done such good a job after all. It may have been mistaken assumptions that led her to decide that _she_ was right in the matter of Noah Lessing and to dismiss Chakotay's objections too quickly. She wasn't sure how things would have ended if Chakotay hadn't stepped in. There were some questions that she wasn't ready to ask herself yet.

Chakotay had always had a different view of Starfleet than Kathryn did. Over the years their differences had retreated from day to day consideration as they worked together to build their crew. But Chakotay's experiences with the Maquis gave him a non-Starfleet perspective on certain issues. In their recent run-in with the Equinox, Chakotay's Maquis experience had told him that the Captain's attempt to bluff Noah Lessing into giving up his crewmates wouldn't work.

In the Maquis Chakotay had seen people who had faced terrible realities and were driven to commit terrible deeds. After that, they clung even more fiercely to the loyalty and the companionship of their 'brothers and sisters in crime'. In Noah Lessing, Chakotay recognized a man who would maintain his silence and his loyalty to his Equinox crew, not despite what they had done, but _because_ of the very acts that they had committed together.

This was something that the Captain had never experienced in Starfleet. So she didn't pick up on it. Chakotay didn't know how to explain to her that even Starfleet officers could reach this point without undermining her belief in a Starfleet that, most of the time, was her strength. Kathryn needed that strength and the ship needed Kathryn to have that strength. So right now Chakotay directed his energy to doing would he could to repair their relationship and to restore what they could of the united front that the crew depended upon.

"I'll keep my boxing to the holodeck," he assured her. "After all, I do have my image as First Officer to maintain."

She nodded in sympathy. They were both well aware of how much their rank sometimes constrained them.

"You should spend more time on the holodeck yourself, Kathryn."

"I try," she said ruefully. "There's always so much else to do."

"You hardly ever take shore leave," he reminded her. "We don't have a ship's counselor for you to talk to. Even the earliest Starfleet Captains at least had a ship's Doctor to confide in. Dr. Leonard McCoy is probably the classic example of that kind of Doctor-Confidant. Voyager's Doctor is skilled in looking after the crew's physical health. He's come a long way as a person since his early days as an emergency hologram. But he's still growing. He depends on _you_ to support _his_ personal needs rather than the other way around. You're human, Kathryn. You're not invincible. You have to do more to take care of yourself.

"I do try. This stop at the outpost was fun," she confided with a winsome smile.

"Even the gifts cluttering up your ready room?" he asked. He remembered the hair-clinging plant that had taken to making sneak attacks on the Captain whenever she passed too close to it.

Kathryn remembered the plant and the Kinbori racquets too. She was undeterred. "Even the brawl," she replied in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Then I'm glad," he said gently. "Leave it to Tom Paris to go that extra distance to lift spirits," he joked.

She laughed. Then she stopped to look back at Marika Wilkarah. "I think Tom can reach her. Even if no-one else can."

"How are you going to arrange it? Even though the rest of those who were involved in the street fight were released from quarters after our visitors left, Tom and Harry are still confined until tomorrow."

"I know. It's one of the disadvantages of being bridge officers. But, if Tom can't come to the mountain, the mountain is just going to have to come to him," she said somewhat enigmatically and smiled down at the coffee that was left in her mug.


	5. Chapter 5

Lessons Learned from Loneliness 

Chapter 5

The Doctor paced back and forth in his office, his agitation growing more and more pronounced as he expounded on each and every flaw that he found in the Captain's proposal. "Frankly, Captain, I don't see how you can even suggest such a thing. This is Ms. Wilkarah's health that you are talking about. What if there is an emergency that Mr. Paris can't cope with? Have you considered that possibility?"

Kathryn Janeway listened carefully to the Doctor's arguments. She'd been listening the same arguments for quite some time now. She didn't let any of the frustration that was building register on her face, but it was becoming increasingly clear to her that the Doctor's protests had more to do with form than they did with substance. The Doctor still refused to publicly admit that Tom was a fully qualified medic, and that he was more than capable of handling the kind of medical scans that they were discussing.

"Doctor, we are talking about the daily medical scans. You already asked me to assign Mr. Paris to extra duty in Sickbay so he could run some of those scans for you, when we first learned that Ms. Wilkarah wanted to remain on Voyager. You can't have it both ways. You can't argue that Tom Paris' medical training makes it important for him to cover extra shifts in Sickbay in order to run her scans, and then object to Tom running those same scans outside of Sickbay."

The Doctor opened his mouth to refute her point, but couldn't think of what to say. He had every intention of making use of Mr. Paris's medical skills to help him to monitor Ms. Wilkarah's condition. It was just that, with Mr. Paris actually in Sickbay, the Doctor could use his help with other medical duties too. The Doctor didn't want to confess _that_ part to the Captain. He didn't intend to give in easily, though. So it was with his parting caustic comment about violating medical protocol ringing in her ears that the Captain finally made her escape from Sickbay to make it to Tom Paris' quarters before it got too late.

As a general rule, Captains didn't visit crewmembers in their personal quarters. The very sight of the Captain approaching their quarters would send most crewmembers scurrying back to clean already satisfactory living accommodations in anticipation of an inspection.

At least, almost all of the crew quarters on Voyager were satisfactory. Kathryn had heard interesting stories about one crewmember's quarters. According to those stories, the level of dirt that periodically accumulated there threatened to provide enough fertile ground to make the use of the hydroponics bay superfluous.

A Captain didn't actually deal with those sorts of issues directly. That was a First Officer's job. Kathryn had enough confidence in her First Officer's ability to do his job to be confident that the aforementioned stories were greatly exaggerated and that there was no real danger of a new vegetable patch springing up on the crew decks.

Tom Paris was an exception to the general rule about the Captain's visits to crew quarters. Kathryn had visited Tom Paris in his quarters before this. She had once made a late evening visit to Tom in order to inform him that the Doctor had advised against him making an early morning warp ten flight that he had his heart set on.

The reason for her visit today wasn't quite so urgent. But it was important in its own way. Still, she didn't want to risk getting to Tom's quarters late enough to find him in his bathrobe again. She had handled the issue then by being very business-like and assuring herself that a bathrobe was just a late night version of the Starfleet uniform. It had been an interesting experience, but one that was probably best not repeated.

Kathryn exited the turbolift and rechecked the time with the ship's chronometer. It should be fine she told herself. She stopped for a minute to mentally review her plan and then pressed the signal pad beside Tom's door. When she didn't get a response, she tried again. This time the door opened.

Inside the room, Tom was sitting at his computer console. He was dressed casually in off-duty clothes. The infamous bathrobe was nowhere in sight. Kathryn couldn't tell what Tom was working on and he was too engrossed in whatever it was to look up from his screen. "I can't come out. I'm still grounded," he reminded whoever was standing at the open door.

"I know, Mr. Paris," the Captain responded from the doorway. "I'm the one who grounded you. May I come in?"

Tom turned around in surprise. He had really expected it to be B'Elanna or Harry. It had totally slipped his mind that B'Elanna was working late and that Harry was still confined to quarters, just like he was. "Of course, Captain. I didn't know it was you," he explained unnecessarily as he got to his feet. He gestured to invite her to sit since these were his quarters, which technically made him her host.

The Captain made a quick survey of the room before she sat down. Contrary to one of the several misconceptions about Tom, left from his early days on the ship, he kept his quarters organized and neat. The idea that he was a slob in his private habits lingered on in the minds of a few people from the days when Tom had put on that persona to help her to uncover the spy on the ship. Those misconceptions were slowly fading. Unfortunately, this and other false impressions had continued on for far too long in some people's minds. It was one of the things that the Captain regretted, that she had given Tom these extra hurdles to overcome in building his place on Voyager.

Kathryn noted a couple of additions to the décor and some other modifications to Tom's quarters. The arrangement of the living and sleeping areas was more open in feel. He had added new personal articles. What looked like models of early ground vehicles sat in a place of honor on a low shelf under a clear-topped coffee table in the middle of the living room area. She could remember Admiral Paris talking about the toy models that Tom had liked to build when he was a child. Tom had gotten Joe Carey interested in building models too. Mr. Carey was working on a detailed model of Voyager to which he now devoted many of his off duty hours.

Kathryn looked more closely at Tom's models, trying not to be too obvious about it. The ground cars were finished in shades of bright and soft yellow. That surprised her. She would have expected Tom to use the brightest red for all of his toys. But that was Tom too. Just when you thought you knew all about him, he surprised you.

To Kathryn, Tom's rooms now felt less like a standard cabin and more like a place where someone lived. Not just anyone either, the rooms now felt like a place where _Tom_ lived. She chose one of the chairs beside the table where he had been working, sat down and formally folded her hands.

"Can I get you anything?" Tom asked. He was not sure what to think about this visit, but manners were manners.

"No, thank you. Please, sit." She waited for him to do so. "I've come to ask you for a favor."

He wrinkled his forehead in surprise. This wasn't among the top ten guesses that he would have made about the reason for the Captain's visit. He couldn't think of anything that she would ask him to do that couldn't wait until he was back on duty. Still, he was well aware of what the ship had gone through recently. He was more than willing to do what he could to help out. "Sure, Captain. What is it?"

Tom had been out of circulation for the last couple of days, and she wasn't sure how much his visitors had told him about the Borg trio. She decided that it was best to start back at the beginning and fill him in. "While you were over on the station, three former drones from Seven's old unimatrix came on board Voyager. They wanted Seven to help them figure out how to break a residual link that kept them trapped in a subunit of three. We were able to sever the link, but at a great cost. They were left with only weeks to live after the surgery."

"That's awful," Tom said compassionately. He had heard about the Borg, but not this part.

She nodded in agreement. "Two of them have already left Voyager to live out their remaining days elsewhere. The third, Marika Wilkarah, has asked to stay with us on Voyager. I've granted her request."

"How can I help?" he asked, getting right to the heart of the matter.

"She could use some friends. I'm not sure that she's up to making many, given her current frame of mind."

"So, you want me to help her make some friends, Captain?" Tom probed, trying to follow where she was going.

"That too. What I really want to ask you is if you would be her friend. I think that I can safely say that you have a talent for making friends in unlikely places and in the face of unlikely odds." She smiled warmly at the memory of how Tom had worked his way from social pariah to his current place at the center of so much on Voyager.

Tom's laughed at her quip, but he had reservations on that topic. At one time the word 'friend' didn't carry all the positive associations that it did now on Voyager. There were some people who had once called him 'friend' that he wished he had never met. But his past experiences also made him value the friendships that he had now on Voyager even more. So he could fully understand why the Captain felt it was so important for Ms. Wilkarah to make friends on Voyager. He wasn't sure that the Captain was right about any of this making _him_ Marikah Wilkarah's choice for friend, though.

"Yeah, well, I guess you could put it that way and I appreciate the vote of confidence," he told the Captain. "But isn't it being pushy for us to decide who her friends will be? Wouldn't she rather make those choices for herself? Seven for instance, you said that they were part of the same unimatrix. They must have a lot in common already."

"Unfortunately, Seven was the one who was responsible for setting up the link that caused this problem."

"Oh!" he mouthed, as he realized the all implications involved in what she had just told him.

"Exactly," she agreed. "Seven didn't intend to harm her or the others either," she explained. "That doesn't change the situation that they are in now. Ms. Wilkarah doesn't want anything to do with Seven, at least not yet."

Tom nodded slowly. "How can I help?" he repeated.

"I've asked the Doctor to let you access Marika Wilkarah's medical files from the console in your quarters. I'd like you to familiarize yourself with her condition so that you can help the Doctor to monitor her needs. The less time she has to spend in Sickbay, the more normal these last weeks can be for her. You'll be able to leave your quarters tomorrow. We're not scheduled to undock until after eleven hundred hours. Report to the Doctor first thing in the morning so he can give you instructions and provide you with any medical supplies that you'll need. I'd like you to introduce yourself to Ms. Wilkarah and see how it goes from there."

"I'll do what I can, Captain," he promised.

"Thank you, Tom. I knew I could count on you." She stood up and left a rather thoughtful Tom Paris alone in his quarters.

Early the next morning Marika Wilkarah was up and walking the ship's corridors, wandering from one part of the ship to another and then back again. She studied her surroundings in detail, the panels, the conduits, the bulkheads, anything she could pretend to be interested in to create the impression that she was too absorbed in her examination of the ship to notice or to acknowledge anyone who passed by.

Almost inevitably, she drew closer and closer to Engineering. She stopped outside sensor range of the doors. She almost put out a hand to touch them, but stopped herself. She'd been working in Engineering on the Excalibur when the Borg attacked. Even though this wasn't the same ship, memories came surging out of the darkness. She unconsciously took a step forward and the doors sprang open.

A crewmember working at a nearby panel glanced over and put on a polite smile when he saw who was at the door. She shrugged him off and stepped all the way inside to avoid looking foolish. She stood there, trying to pretend that she had a reason for coming.

This space wasn't quite as large as on the Excalibur. The configuration of panels and some of the workstations in this Engineering department were different too. But there were enough similarities in the basic design of the two ships that she could imagine T'Pellen working at her station, as she had been when the Borg struck. Even in Marika's later years as a Borg, when she took more notice of individual thoughts, she had never gotten any sense of a presence that could be called 'T'Pellen' in the collective mind. T'Pellen must have been killed in the initial attack along with Marika's husband and so many others. Marika could remember a look that seemed almost like surprise on T'Pellen's face.

Voyager's engineering team moved efficiently through their duties. They transitioned smoothly from one task to the next, exchanging information as they worked. When they spoke, it was with the confidence of a well-trained, experienced team. Some voices were deep. Some were light. One clear authoritative voice orchestrated the whole. Marika closed her eyes. It was like having the comforting presence of Borg voices in her head. It was a sound that she had once despised and now found it impossible not to miss.

"Hey! Are you okay?"

She opened her eyes abruptly. Below a forehead of soft ridges, a pair of brown eyes stared back at her. Marika made a rapid scan through her memory, searching the files she had read. The half-Klingon who was in charge in Engineering, what was her name again? Oh yes, 'B'Elanna Torres'.

"I'm fine," she said. "The Captain said that I could explore the ship."

B'Elanna regarded her thoughtfully. "You were an engineer on the Excalibur, weren't you?" she commented.

"That's what I _used_ to be," Marika clarified.

B'Elanna gestured to invite Marika all the way inside. "Voyager's systems are a bit different from the Excalibur's," she explained. "If you have any questions, let me know." She waited a moment in case Marika actually did have a question. "We're running the final series of checks for our departure today. I'll be around if you need me, probably over there," She pointed to an alcove on one side of the central warp-core and then walked back to resume her duties.

Marika abandoned the shelter of the doorway. If B'Elanna had spoken to her softly, she would have brushed her off and left. But the Chief Engineer's concern had been delivered with the blunt honesty of her Klingon heritage. Marika found that she could tolerate this gruff kindness.

Marika wandered from station to station, studying consoles, keeping to herself. Memories of her lost crew pressed in on her like hungry ghosts, attacking from all sides, begging for recognition, pleading for remembrance. It was too much. She had to leave.

B'Elanna's voice caught up to her near the door. "Come back any time. If you want something to do, we could certainly use your help."

"Thanks," she answered, not daring to turning around. "But I don't think I can work in here."

"There are shuttles in the shuttlebay that always need maintenance." B'Elanna suggested, leaving the offer open-ended.

"I don't know. I'll think about it. Maybe. I have to go now." The doors opened and Marika fled to take refuge in the mess hall.


	6. Chapter 6

Lessons Learned from Loneliness

Chapter 6

Sickbay was in an unusual state of disarray. Supplies had been pulled from storage spaces, large and small. Containers sat open with their contents spilling out to cover every available surface in the Doctor's office.

Medical instruments were designed to be easily recognizable, even in demanding emergency situations. Sometime in the past, an instrument designer had run wild, adapting outlandish geometric shapes to use in crafting modern medical tools. Tom had no doubt that all of this creativity served its purpose. It was just that, right now, the pile of instruments that the Doctor was amassing looked more like the upended contents of a child's toy-box.

The Doctor finally located the cylindrical gauge he had spent the last ten minutes searching for. He returned in triumph to the main treatment bay and added the gauge to the top of a large pile of instruments on a cart.

Tom was sitting on the biobed beside the cart, contemplating the impressive pile. His hands fidgeted restlessly, playing with the material along the edge of the bed and his legs dangled uselessly above the floor. The Doctor had refused all of Tom's offers to help. Instead he had treated Tom to a review of each piece of equipment and the basic instructions for its use. It was information that Tom had learned in his first three weeks of training and he tried to keep his eyes from glazing over as he listened.

About fifteen minutes ago the Doctor had finally run out of new things to say, so Sickbay was now quiet, except for the usual sounds of shuffling, banging and swishing that were made by anyone searching through a room full of containers and drawers. Tom had nothing to do for the last quarter hour but sit and watch the Doctor. The Doctor's collection of medical equipment had reached alarming proportions and he was preparing to search for more.

Tom was beginning to wonder if the Captain's plan had any real chance of working. It wouldn't, if the Doctor kept this up much longer. Tom could imagine Marika Wilkarah's reaction to the sight of the entire contents of Sickbay showing up at her door. He finally couldn't keep quiet any longer. "Take it easy, Doc. She's going to run in the other direction if she sees me coming with all this stuff."

The Doctor sniffed in response. He had every intention of being thorough in his preparations for his patient. He wanted to be ready for any contingency. "Really, Mr. Paris, if you're going to help Ms. Wilkarah…"

"'Help_'_ is the operative word here, Doc. I can't help her if she won't let me near her." Tom objected.

The Doctor wavered. Perhaps he was being overly conscientious. Mr. Paris was more than capable of carrying out the standard tests needed to monitor Ms. Wilkarah's condition, and to administer her daily dose of medication too. He also knew that Tom would notify him immediately if Ms. Wikarah's condition changed and his services were needed.

It was just that Kes, his previous assistant, had been so interested in medicine and so dedicated to her training. She would have been a fully trained physician by now. He couldn't help comparing Tom to Kes and feeling frustrated that Tom's main interests lay in areas other than medicine. Or maybe it was that if he ever let himself fully accept Tom Paris as his assistant, it meant admitting, deep down inside, that Kes was truly gone, forever.

The Doctor gently stroked the surface of the cylindrical gauge that he had added to his pile of instruments. Then he collected himself. When he spoke, he kept his tone gruff. There was no point in making Mr. Paris overconfident. Plus, he wanted to make it clear that he was still disgruntled, even if he _was_ going along with the Captain's plan. "Very well, Mr. Paris. Take the medical tricorder and the hypospray. Leave the rest of the equipment here."

"That's the spirit, Doc!" Tom approved, getting down from the biobed and patting the Doctor firmly on the shoulder.

"Humph," was the Doctor's only reply.

With that rousing vote of confidence from the Doctor, Tom made his way to the mess hall where Marika had established herself at her regular table. There weren't too many people in the mess hall at this time of day. The few who were there kept a safe distance from Marika Wilkarah. Tom walked toward her table, nodding to crewmembers as he passed. There was a time when most of them would have ignored him, either because he was a bridge officer and above the notice of lowly crewmembers, or because he was _Tom Paris_ and even lowly crewmembers didn't feel like stooping low enough to acknowledge _him_.

However, Tom's stint as medic had done a lot to alleviate those attitudes. Even without everything else that Tom Paris had done for the ship, it was hard not to think kindly of the medic who made a joke about the perils of 'if at first you don't succeed', but otherwise didn't complain the _fourth_ time in a week that he had to treat your upset stomach back when you were trying to recreate Great Uncle Jose's secret recipe for hot sauce. He understood why it was so important to you to keep trying, even when success seemed so unlikely. And no one could maintain a cool distance from the friendly presence in Sickbay who smiled sympathetically over the Doctor's shoulder when the Doctor insisted on giving you his standard lecture about the folly of eating foods that were obviously too spicy for your system.

A couple of the crew sent worried glances Tom's way when they realized where he was heading. He shook his head to deflect their concern and kept walking. When he got close to Marika, Tom noted how very deliberately she avoided looking his way. He stopped beside her table and stood there, waiting for her to respond to his presence.

Marika bit back the stinging comment she was tempted to make. She had a feeling that _any_ kind of comment would only encourage this one. Her irritation built when he didn't take the hint and go away.

Didn't these Voyagers understand that she wasn't interested in talking to any of them? The only people she wanted to speak to were the ones she had lost. There had been so many of them, - too many. The last two losses were especially bitter to bear. Lansor and P'Chan had both gone away. Lansor left her to spend his last days on the station, meeting new people. P'Chan was now on a quiet planet somewhere, restored to the tranquility that was native to his people.

Marika hadn't been ready for this. All those years they had struggled to sever the neural link that held them together, struggled to retrieve their own identities from the triad they had become. All those years they had been forced to share their thoughts and she still hadn't foreseen that they would leave her behind so soon after they were free.

Tom waited patiently. He wasn't going anywhere. When he saw that she wasn't going to acknowledge him, he decided to forge ahead anyway. "Tom Paris," he said, introducing himself just as if she had asked. "Voyager's Chief Pilot and medic. Doc asked me to come and run some of the regular medical scans for him so you don't have to go down to Sickbay so often.

She did look at him then, and nodded curtly in response to his identity. But, "I've never been that interested in flying," was all that she said.

He accepted this somewhat discouraging response without offense and sat down. He entered the first settings for Marika into his tricorder and ran his initial scans. "I understand that you were an engineer," he said, making conversation as he worked.

"That was a lifetime ago," she said dismissively.

Tom readjusted the calibration and ran a second set of scans. "Have you been to Engineering yet?"

She glared at him. He ignored her glare. She waited. He waited longer. She finally had to accept that he wasn't going to pay any attention to her attempts to discourage him. She decided to go ahead and answer his question. Maybe _then_ he'd leave.

"The Captain gave me a tour of the ship. She showed me around Engineering. I went back there today. Lt. Torres told me that I could help out if I wanted some work to do while I'm here. For as long as I'm here," she said angrily, turning her face away from him.

Tom recognized the depth of her pain and searched for something to say. "Well, with Voyager on its own in the Delta quadrant, there's always something that needs to be fixed. We can always use more help, especially in Engineering," he explained to make it clear that they weren't offering her charity.

"Or," he added, as another thought occurred to him, "if you have something recreational in mind, there are always the holodecks. We have an extensive collection of holodeck programs. Over the years the crew has come up with a wide assortment. You can practically tour the Alpha quadrant without leaving Voyager."

She looked back at him curiously.

"The holodecks helped a lot when so many of the crew were homesick, especially the first few years out here," he explained. "I created a number of programs myself," he said with a certain degree of pride. "Some of them are quite good, if I do say so myself. You're welcome to try them if you don't feel like creating your own."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Tom Paris? Aren't you the one who was forced to resign from Starfleet after Caldik Prime?"

"That's right," he acknowledged.

She caught a glimmer of pain in his expression. "I've been reading some of Voyager's files," she said. "I wanted to know more about the people here. After so many years of knowing the thoughts of everyone around me, I'm not used to privacy, or secrets. I've gotten out of the habit of being polite." It was clear that she was explaining, not apologizing.

"I understand." He said, accepting her explanation for what it was.

"Do you?" She threw at him. "Do you really?"

"Well, no. I guess not," he admitted. "But, I read your file too."

"Have you finished checking up on me?" she asked, waving his tricorder away.

"Almost," he confessed. "But I also wanted to see if you could use some company. I know it's not always easy, being alone."

She turned away again. "Thanks. But I want to be alone right now."

"All right," he said, this time accepting her dismissal. "I'll stop by later today to take more scans and give you your evening dose of medication. If you need anything before then, don't hesitate to contact me."

She nodded, still facing away from him.

Tom had some time left before he was due on the bridge. He knew that the Captain would appreciate an update on his progress with Marika Wilkarah, limited though that progress had turned out to be.

"Paris to Janeway."

"Go ahead Mr. Paris," the Captain's voice came back to him.

"I met with our newest crewmember," Tom told her. "I can't say things went well. I've made first contact. At this point, that's about all."

"I see. Report to my ready room as soon as you can. I'd like to hear the details."

"On my way." Tom confirmed the final readings from his medical scans and dropped the data off in Sickbay for the Doctor to review. Then he headed to the bridge, not unhappy to have an excuse to escape from a repeat performance of the Doctor's instructions.

In her office, the Captain pushed the PADDs on her desk to one side and waited for Tom to arrive. She had trusted her instincts when she decided to recruit Tom to help with Ms. Wilkarah. She was used to relying on her instincts. The possibility that she had been mistaken in her assessment of the Equinox crewman, Noah Lessing, was a bitter pill for her to swallow.

She had really believed that she had taken his measure. He was part of a crew that had sacrificed alien lives for their own convenience, and then thrown Voyager into the path of danger merely to avoid being held accountable for their actions. She had been so sure that someone like him, someone who had thrown away fundamental Starfleet principles merely to preserve his personal safety, would surely hand over his colleagues rather than risk putting himself in any real danger. So, she had tried a bluff to push him into giving her the information she needed to stop the Equinox. But that bluff could have ended disastrously if Chakotay hadn't stepped in.

Kathryn Janeway didn't have the luxury of indulging in long bouts of self-recrimination. If they were in the Alpha quadrant things might be different. But then, if they were in the Alpha quadrant, none of this would have happened. In the Delta quadrant she had a ship full of people who depended on her. Her instincts and her judgment were so often the critical difference in pulling them out of tight situations. She just had to work extra hard to make sure that these didn't fail her again. And though she may have been mistaken in her assessment of a stranger, her confidence in her appraisal of her own crew was still strong. Tom's initial report about his meeting with Marika didn't sound promising. But she knew that Tom was the one who could reach Marika. She was sure that she was right about this.

A beep at the door interrupted her thoughts and announced Tom. "Mr. Paris," she greeted him as he entered. "What do you have to report?"

Tom stopped in front of her desk, standing at ease. "I met Marika Wilkarah in the mess hall," he informed her. "I introduced myself. I explained that I was going to be running medical scans to monitor her condition. We talked for a little while. Then she said that she wanted to be alone." He shrugged an apology at the sketchiness of his progress report.

She wasn't discouraged. "What's your opinion?" she asked.

He considered what he had seen and heard during his meeting with Marika. "I think you're right about her. She may say that she wants to be alone. But she's out in public rather than staying locked away in her quarters. She's read many of the crew files to find out about the people on the ship. I think she'd like some company. She won't make it easy for us to reach her though. She's going through a tough time."

"What's your plan?" The Captain moved directly to the next step. She knew Tom well enough to know that if he didn't have one already, he would have one soon.

"I'm not exactly sure yet," Tom said. He rubbed the back of his neck to help himself think. "I'll be seeing her later this evening to give her some medication and run more scans. She can't refuse to see me unless she wants to go to Sickbay. I think she'll put up with me instead. But there's no guarantee. She's a pretty determined lady."

"You're pretty determined yourself, Tom," Kathryn pointed out.

"Yeah. I guess so. It wouldn't be so hard if we had more time," he explained, sharing his frustration. "She's not ready to ask for help and she's built a thick wall around herself."

"At one time you had a pretty thick wall around yourself too. Sometimes I think you still keep too much locked inside." This was one area where Kathryn felt that Tom was probably too much like her.

Tom looked uncomfortable. Kathryn stood and walked around her desk to stand in front of him. "She needs a friend, Tom. Think back to when you really needed a friend. You'll know what to do."

"I don't give up that easily," he assured her. "I'll give it the best I've got. I just don't want you to be disappointed if things don't work out."

She drew on her reserves of confidence and promised, "I won't be disappointed. Your best will be more than good enough for me."


	7. Chapter 7

Lessons Learned from Loneliness

Chapter 7

By late afternoon, Voyager had slipped its moorings and was flying past a local concentration of star clusters on its way into the darker reaches of deep space. Tom finished his shift on the bridge and handed off to his relief.

Tom and B'Elanna had made plans to share an early dinner in her quarters. B'Elanna wasn't yet ready to talk about recent events with Max. But over dinner she did tell Tom stories about her time with Max at the academy.

She'd broken up with Max one evening while they were out walking. She'd discovered that he had 'borrowed' one of her projects, 'forgotten' to give her credit for her work, and then let his professor continue to believe that her work was his own. She'd developed a pretty low opinion of him by then. But then Max had taken off his sweater so she could wear it home because it was getting chilly and he knew that she felt the cold more than he did. It didn't make her rethink her decision to break up with him. But it did make her wonder if she'd ever really figure him out.

It was the Max who had sacrificed his own comfort so that she could be warm that she allowed herself to remember when she'd met up with him again on Voyager. Maybe she just didn't want to dwell on his failings, not after she'd lost so many others from the Alpha quadrant.

At this point in her reminiscing, B'Elanna decided that she had spent enough time talking about Max for one day and changed the subject. She didn't want to go any deeper into her relationship with Max yet, at least not with Tom. She didn't want to tell Tom about her concern that there was some kind of flaw in her character that led her to choose a guy like Max, a person with so little honor. She didn't want to say anything that might give Tom the idea that she put _him_ into the same category as Max, that she in any way questioned her judgment in choosing to be with Tom, that there was any doubt in her mind about his honor. She wouldn't do that to Tom. He had worked so hard and sacrificed so much to prove to himself that he did have honor.

Tom sat on his side of the table and watched as B'Elanna put away the past. He was sure that she had more to say. But he knew she wasn't going to tell him any more tonight, and at least this had been a start. They spent the rest of their evening together sitting comfortably over the crumbs of their meal, sharing their day. Then Tom helped B'Elanna clean up and he returned to his own quarters.

Tom's workday wasn't over yet. Once he collected his medical equipment he headed off to Holodeck Two.

"Tom, wait up!" Harry Kim called as he rushed to catch up with Tom.

Tom stopped in the corridor to wait for Harry, his first and best friend on Voyager. Harry had a huge grin on his face. When he caught up to Tom, it looked like he just couldn't stop smiling.

"You look remarkably cheerful for someone who spent the last few days confined to quarters," Tom commented.

"Are you kidding?" Harry asked. "It was great. With Baytart busy around the ship or off on shore leave, I got to practice my clarinet any time I wanted without him banging on the bulkhead."

Tom chuckled at his friend's view of his restriction to quarters.

"What about you? What did you do with your time?" Harry asked when they resumed walking.

"I did some research for a project that I'm working on for the crew."

"A new holoprogram?"

"No. For now I'm sticking with activities and games that they can play outside the holodeck, like that puzzle that I brought on board."

Harry shook his head at that one. He remembered too well the long hours he'd spent trying to solve 'Sheer Lunacy'. He could only imagine what Tom had in mind to top that one. "So," he said, "are you going to give me details?"

"Soon," Tom promised. "I'm only in the early stages of my research. I've been looking at twentieth century activities that had a broad appeal in their day and could easily be adapted for shipboard use. I've got two in mind at the moment, 'Parcheesi' and 'Ping-Pong'.

"'Parcheesi and Ping-Pong'? Where do you get these names, Tom? 'Parcheesi' sounds like a version of parrises squares with a cold and 'Ping-Pong' sounds like some kind of Earth-Asian food."

Tom laughed. "I'll fill you in later. Right now I'm still on duty. Marika Wilkarah," he explained, holding up his medical case.

"That's too bad," Harry sympathized. "I was looking for you because Dalby offered to buy us a round of synthehol beer. He's up in the mess hall now. I thought we should take him up on his offer before he changes his mind."

"Dalby?" Tom couldn't contain his surprise. "What's got him so generous to bridge officers all of a sudden?"

Harry grinned again. "Dalby's still pumped up about the fight on the station. He said that he hasn't had an excuse to let loose like that in a long time. He wants us to give him the heads up next time we decide to start a brawl."

Tom's eyes twinkled, but he said, "The Captain let us off easy this time. I don't think we should press our luck. I'll have to pass on the beer for now too." He stopped in front of the doors to Holodeck Two.

Harry stopped with him and nodded toward the holodeck. "Need any help?" he asked.

"Probably," Tom admitted. "But I don't want her to think that she's being ambushed by a crowd. Doc really needs me to get these medical readings. I appreciate the offer though."

"Any time, good buddy." Harry clapped Tom on the shoulder. "You know where to find me if you change your mind."

"Thanks, Harry."

Tom stepped inside the holodeck to find an old, familiar program up and running. Beside the pool table Gaunt Gary had taken his jacket off for the shot that he was lining up. He interrupted his aim long enough to nod to Tom before getting back to business. At a table near the fireplace the gigolo was wooing his chosen lady. He didn't waste any attention on Tom. He clasped his lady's hand warmly to make sure that she didn't waste any of her attention on Tom either.

The customers at the tables were thirsty and the waiters were busy. The bartender worked virtually nonstop to load tray after tray. Each one went off to its intended table heavy with glasses of beer and wine.

On the dance floor, couples were swept up in swirling circles that matched the smooth cadence of the soft music. The music masked any gaps left between laughing voices and the clinking of glasses. All seemed lighthearted, welcoming and alive.

A closer look revealed to Tom that the customers tonight were all characters from the holoprogram. The only exception sat alone at the table farthest from the door. Even in this sham reality Marika Wilkarah was watching others and trying to avoid being watched in turn. Tom detoured around the dancing couples to reach her table. He sat down to run his scans without waiting for an invitation, or for a rejection.

"I see you've discovered Sandrine's," he commented neutrally as he began his work.

Marika considered his words carefully to see if there was a hidden message in there somewhere. Finally she chose to speak. "This is one of your programs, isn't it?" she asked.

"It's one of the very first that I programmed on Voyager," he explained, checking his readings. "I haven't seen this many characters from the holoprogram for quite a while, though," he commented, looking up to catch her reaction.

She shrugged. "It fills the space. Sometimes it's easier when there's a crowd."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Being alone isn't always all it's made out to be, is it?" Tom retrieved a hypospray from his case and set it on the table between them.

There was something in his tone that made Marika examine him more closely. He seemed to be intently studying the hypospray that he had just placed on the table, or maybe he was staring right through it at something that was much farther away.

Several minutes passed before Tom picked up the hypospray again. "When I first came on Voyager, I wasn't exactly everyone's favorite person," he told Marika as he prepared to administer her required dose.

"Because of Caldik Prime," she guessed, accepting the medication.

"Because of that and other things too," he admitted, long past hiding the truth. "After I was kicked out of Starfleet, I let myself drift. It was pretty much downhill all the way. I got picked up by the Maquis to work for them. But I didn't make myself popular there either. I eventually ended up in prison. That's where I was when Captain Janeway recruited me for the mission to the Badlands. I was only an observer at first. It wasn't until we were stranded out here that I got to fly again. Just because I was a part of the crew didn't mean that I was part of the crew, you know?"

She nodded.

"Back then it was a relief to have a place like this," he said, gesturing in the direction of the holocharacters who filled the room. "I could fit in without anyone noticing that I didn't belong."

She looked down at her hands. "I thought that I was the only one who felt that way."

"Hiding in a crowd," he said, remembering those days. "Is that what _you're_ doing?"

She nodded slowly. "When your Doctor severed my link to the others, I wanted to stay on a Federation ship. I wanted to spend my days in the kind of place where I was last fully Bajoran. But it isn't the same. I don't belong here the way I did on the Excalibur. In some ways, being here on Voyager makes it worse."

"I know," he said. "When I was in prison, all the things that I'd lost were out of sight and out of reach. So I could let myself go numb. Then when I came on Voyager, everything was all around me again. But I couldn't touch any of it. I had to stand by and watch others live a life that I could never have anymore." He looked at her earnestly. "It doesn't have to be that way for you. You don't have to be alone on Voyager."

"I don't know these people!" she threw at him, angry again. "They can't replace…" She stopped and lowered her eyes before she could betray herself.

He understood anyway. "They can't replace the ones that you lost," he finished for her. "They can't replace the ones who left you behind when they went off to live the rest of their lives somewhere else."

She nodded again, her throat tight.

Tom's own voice was thick with remembered pain when he went on. "At Caldik Prime, three of my closest friends died. In a moment they were just, gone. And it was my fault. I thought that I would never have friends like them again, that no-one could ever replace them." He was quiet for a moment. "And I was right."

She was startled into looking up. She had expected platitudes and assurances that everyone could make new friends. This caught her off guard.

He shook his head at her expression. "You can't replace people the way you can replicate a new set of clothes. No one can ever take their place. No one will ever mean exactly the same to me as they did. But, in time I was able to let myself make new friends. Not to replace the ones that I'd lost," he explained. "But people who are special to me because of who _they_ are."

"I don't think that I'm in a position to make many life-long friendships on Voyager," she said bitterly, staring down at the table again.

"It only takes one friend to stop being alone. Harry Kim was my first friend when I came on Voyager. I'm here for you, if you'd like a friend," he offered.

When she didn't answer he tilted his head to catch her gaze. Smiling softly, he added, "If you're not interested in a life-long friendship, my feelings won't be hurt if you break up with me later."

She laughed in pure reflex at his outrageousness.

"All it takes is one friend," he reminded her. "Then it's not so hard to live with the pain."

"Is it?" she asked him, sincerely wanting to know. "Can you live with the pain?"

"Yes," he said. "The pain doesn't go away. But when there are other things to fill your life too, it gets easier to go on."

"Even when all I have left is a few weeks?" she persisted in asking.

"When I first came on Voyager, the mission was only supposed to last a few weeks," he explained. "I know that's not the same thing as you're facing now. But a few weeks was all the time I thought I had to be close to anything worthwhile again."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"I guess you just have to choose how you're going to live the life that you _do_ have," he said. "It's not something that anyone else can decide for you."

She slowly opened her eyes and this time looked right into his. "What did you say your friend's name was?"

"Harry?" He was not quite sure where she was heading with her question and his answer held a question of his own.

"Harry," she repeated, trying out the name. "I think I'd like to meet Harry."

"I think I can arrange that." Tom smiled. He made good on his offer by reaching out to help her to her feet.

Marika stood beside him to take one last look at all the empty images that filled the space around her. "Computer, end program," she stated decisively.

The vibrant atmosphere of Sandrine's with all its colorful patrons faded out of existence, to be replaced by blank walls crisscrossed with bright yellow lines. The actual appearance of the holodeck was stark. But it was real.

Tom crooked his arm and Marika slipped her hand under it. Then she walked out of the holodeck with him, to live the life that she had left - among friends.

Author's Notes:

The episode, Barge of the Dead, immediately follows the episode, Survival Instinct. I thought there might still be some spill-over for B'Elanna from her meeting with Max in Equinox - unresolved issues about his character and his death - when she faced the possibility of her mother's death and the questions around her own honor in Barge of the Dead. By giving B'Elanna concerns about her judgment in choosing one man without honor, it provided a reason better than the rather lame comment, "next time", for her to shut Tom out of her quest.


	8. Chapter 8

Lessons Learned from Loneliness

Chapter 8

Marika still put in many hours sitting at her table in the mess hall. She no longer sat alone. First Tom and Harry, then others came to join her.

It surprised a few people that Marika chose to spend so much time with Mike Ayala. She found his presence soothing. He didn't demand that she talk a lot. But he would listen. When there weren't too many people around, he had interesting things to say.

Sometimes the Captain came to sit at her table. Marika supposed that it was kind of the Captain to do this. But her own Captain on the Excalibur would never have come to the mess hall to join her for a cup of coffee. Having Voyager's Captain do so just made it more obvious to her how different things were on this ship - how different things were for _her_. She didn't encourage the Captain to stay.

Marika saw Seven at a distance. The time never came when she was ready to talk to her again.

Sometimes Marika wanted to have time alone. But she found that she couldn't just go off and sit by herself. When she tried to do that, she caught herself calculating how many weeks she had left, counting the days that were slipping so quickly through her fingers. She needed to have something to occupy her mind. So Marika took B'Elanna up on her offer to work in the shuttlebay.

It was Tom who selected the shuttle for her to refit. He said that Chalotay had nothing to do with damaging this one. She didn't quite understand the reference to Commander Chakotay. Tom seemed to think it was funny though. Tom said that this particular shuttle had been 'wonky' for years and she could be just the person to set it right again. After the first couple of days, she began assigning herself to half-shifts in the shuttlebay on a regular basis. It made her feel useful and more like she belonged on the ship.

Tom stopped by from time to time to visit and to share his ideas on how to make the shuttle handle better. B'Elanna would come by too. Whenever Tom or B'Elanna offered an opinion on Marika's work, they were always honest with her. Marika appreciated that. She didn't feel that they were just patting the dying woman on the head because she still had enough life left in her to handle a set of tools.

One day, while Marika was at work, a quiet shadow found its voice and came to visit.

"What are you doing?"

From her crouched position beside an open panel, Marika Wilkarah turned her head to see Tal Celes, the young woman she had practically chased out of the mess hall with her tongue. Tal was standing nervously in the doorway of the shuttlecraft. She looked like a fluttering butterfly, wavering between two courses of action, - in this case between displaying a major show of bravery by staying or giving in to a strong desire to flee to safety.

Marika took pity on her and answered, "I'm fine tuning the coils." She considered the timid crewmember and asked, "What are _you_ doing?"

"Seven sent me here to see if I could help you."

"Oh, really?"

"No, not really. What she actually said was that maybe I would do less damage if I came here to find out how you were doing."

"I see. And you weren't put off by our last conversation?"

"Ensign Kim said that you were nice when he talked to you. He said that I should try to talk to you again."

"Well, as long as you're here, you might as well stay. Sit over there and try not to get in my way. We can talk for a while if you want."

Tal settled herself on the floor, near but not too near the open panel. Now that she had been given permission to speak, she couldn't think what to say. Finally she commented. "Your name doesn't sound Bajoran."

"Wilkarah was my husband's name. At the time we were married, I didn't care enough about Bajoran customs to ask him to take mine," Marika told her. She turned back to her coils, but kept talking. "He was killed when the Borg boarded the Excalibur." Now that she had started talking to Tal, she saw no reason to stick to superficial small talk. Her experience as a Borg didn't give her much tolerance for people who avoided the truth. "My name used to be Tamar Mari. My husband was the one who started calling me 'Marika'. It's a form of affection in his native language. Others who heard him started calling me Marika too. After a while I stopped correcting them, just like I stopped correcting people who used to change the order of my names. I notice that you don't use the Bajoran name order either."

Tal had been asked about that before, usually by other Bajorans she met when they were traveling off world. On Bajor she just slipped back to using the correct order. "People still mix the names up too much," she explained. "But a lot of other things are changing for Bajor. Things have gotten better."

"I would guess that many things have changed on Bajor since I was there. My family left when I was very young. My father used to work at the hospital in Ilvia. After he was killed, a sympathetic Cardassian doctor arranged to get the rest of our family off Bajor and we ended up on Earth. I don't remember a lot about Bajor, just bits of memories and the stories that my grandmother used to tell me. When were you last there?"

"I had a week's leave on Bajor before I reported to Voyager. I spent most of my time with friends. I didn't spend as much time with my family as I should have. I thought I would have other chances to visit them."

There was a sorrow in Tal's voice that Marika did not insult with empty words promising that there would be other opportunities to be with her family. Instead, Marika began sharing one of her grandmother's stories. "Grandmother liked to tell me about early mornings by the sea. She would get up before the sun rose to walk along the shore. She'd sit on the rocks to listen to the waves and smell the breeze as the temperature started to rise."

Tal's mood lifted with the gentle tug of a memory of her own. She smiled softly. "We lived in hill country. But I remember that there were these caves high up in the hills. The children would be taken up there sometimes when they wanted us to hide. There was a large rock near the entrance to one of the caves. If you climbed on top of it, you could get a glimpse of the sea in the distance. I thought it was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen."

Marika was pleased to see Tal smile again. "That's what Grandmother said. So tell me more about Bajor," she encouraged Tal.

"I don't know what to tell you."

"What about those caves? Any other good memories about them?"

Tal shifted to a more comfortable position and leaned her head against the bulkhead behind her. "Well, there was this one time. We found yellow berries on the bushes nearby. We gathered big piles of them and carried them in our hats or in the folds of our tunics. The berries popped when you put them in your mouth. They were so sweet, sweeter than moba jam. The bushes were still there the next time we went. But, we never found the berries again."

Marika paused in her work to examine a memory nudged loose by Tal's words. "I think I know which ones you mean. I don't remember what Grandmother called them. But, she told me about these yellow berries that ripened on the high bushes for only a very few days, late in the season. She said they were sweeter than any other berries that you could find in the hills." She shared a brief smile with Tal and then buried her head back inside the open panel while Tal began another story of a rare treat that she had received when she was a child.

They continued in this way through the rest of the afternoon, picking up threads of memories. One topic led to another. They were not always pleasant memories. But they wove together in a vivid tapestry of words.

They met often after this, always in the shuttlebay. Seven never raised any objection to Tal spending so much time with Marika while she was supposed to be on duty. Strangely enough, after that first time Tal never again felt that Seven was just trying to get Tal out of her way.

Tal would sit nearby while Marika worked. They would talk and listen, and feel closer to a home that they had both lost and would probably never see again.

Finally the day came when Marika couldn't work anymore.

Not long after this, the crew gathered in the mess hall. Voices rose and fell, making a comforting hubbub. Earlier in the day the crew had convened in the observation lounge for the more somber part of the ceremony. The tube that carried Marika's body was now far off in the darkness of space. For weeks, Marika Wilkarah had been a vital presence among them. Now that physical presence was gone.

The furniture in the mess hall had been rearranged to allow people to move about and to mingle more easily. Neelix had a spread of snacks and liquid refreshments set up on the counter. Kathryn Janeway stood with her back to the window, watching her crew. Years ago, they had come to the realization that this journey would be unbearable if they marked each painful passing with only grief. They had learned to honor the dead by celebrating their lives in memory. Marika's body was gone. Her spirit remained alive in their memories.

When you witness how someone lives with the certainty of death, you often reexamine elements in your own life. Perspectives shift. Some things become clearer, others fade to unimportance. Changes don't always come in sudden, blinding flashes. But changes come. Sometimes it's for the better. Sometimes it's not. You do the best you can with what you have.

In one corner of the room several engineers grouped themselves around the tangible energy that was B'Elanna Torres. "She was pretty feisty to work with," B'Elanna was saying about Marika. "But she not only upgraded the shuttle's impulse drive, she rebuilt its thrusters too."

Joe Carey added. "According to Tom Paris, the pilots haven't been able to get as much maneuverability out of that shuttle since it took a blast from a Kazon ship four years ago."

B'Elanna shook her head regretfully. "I wish there had been time for her to work on the engines of the other shuttles. They really could have used her touch."

Nearby, a seated group of Bajorans and non-Bajorans formed a small circle around Tal Celes. They sat as if huddled around a campfire for warmth. Megan and Jenny Delaney joined this group. Harry Kim took up a position beside Tal Celes, quietly lending his support. Billy Telfer sat protectively on her other side. Tal wasn't used to being the focus of this much attention.

"Marika wouldn't let me even touch her tools. She said I kept getting them mixed up. But she let me sit beside her for hours, talking about Bajor. It was so good to have someone who knew exactly what I meant when I talked about the color of the ocean." Tal nervously twisted her fingers around the napkin on her lap. "I didn't have to keep explaining about everything on Bajor when I talked to her."

Harry and the other non-Bajorans in the group nodded in sympathy. Tabor and Gerron, two of the other few Bajorans on Voyager, nodded in understanding.

In an open space on the other side of the mess hall, a large group offered a safe haven for those looking for a place to linger, and to belong. Laughter dominated the conversation here. Mike Ayala didn't laugh much, but the mood appealed to him. Marla Gilmore hung back near the outer edge of the group. Sue Nicoletti had walked her from her quarters to the gathering. Chakotay quietly drew Marla forward to stand beside him. Ken Dalby shuffled over to make room for both Marla and Sue.

Chakotay looked across the room and noticed Kathryn standing off by herself. He raised an eyebrow in silent query. She gave him a smile and shook her head slightly. He accepted her reassurance and turned his attention back to the group and to Tom's story of what had happened when he tried to teach Marilka to play pool.

Tuvok and Seven stood off to one side together. Tuvok contemplated the interactions of the crew and quietly contributed his presence to the gathering. Seven clasped her hands firmly behind her back, reserving judgment both on the occasion and on her participation in it.

"The Borg retain the memories of all drones," she observed to Tuvok. "However, they generally access only those memories that contribute to Borg perfection. I see no attempt here to share edifying experiences. I do not understand how this exercise contributes to the enhancement of the crew."

"Several species engage in this type of ritual. They share personal memories in order to promote healing," he explained.

Seven thought about her own experiences with Marika Wilkarah, both before Voyager and during these past weeks. "Recalling imperfection?" she asked.

"Imperfection is not the main criteria used for selection. However, humans, among others, seem to derive as much benefit from learning through their mistakes as they do by observing and experiencing examples of perfection. Sharing these less-than-perfect experiences apparently also strengthens their sense of community."

"Curious," she commented.

"Indeed," he replied.

A loud burst of laughter interrupted their discussion. "And then she threw the pool cue across the bar and told me that I was too obsessed with long, pointed objects." The crew's amusement built steadily as Tom Paris got closer and closer to the end of his story. "That's when she started that list of suggestions for other things that I could do with a cue stick." At this point any self-control that the group had left dissolved into helpless laughter. Most of them had read at least some of the infamous list. Marika Wilkarah had a wicked sense of humor.

"How long is the list now, Tom?" Neelix asked. He was laughing so hard that had trouble speaking. He bent over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath and managed to choke out his words, "I heard that she made over one hundred entries."

"Closer to two hundred," Tom gasped when _he_ was able to speak again. "She had help."

The Doctor piped up proudly. "I myself made suggestions for medical applications to Ms. Wilkarah." Then he frowned slightly. "Although, I must say that she must have misunderstood my meaning on several points."

Chakotay turned aside and pretended to have a coughing fit to help stifle his laughter. He had seen _that_ part of the list too.

From her station near the window, Kathryn smiled. This was better. Her crew was truly beginning to heal. She'd remain here on the side and give them this time together.

But then she noticed Neelix looking her way. He was starting to get worried. Kathryn sighed. She knew that it bothered him when he saw Voyage's Captain standing off by herself for too long. She knew that it bothered the crew too. With all their diversity and the differences between them, Kathryn knew that this crew, her crew, needed to know that their Captain would always be here for them. They depended on that.

It was time for Voyager's Captain to rejoin her crew.

The End


End file.
